"Harmless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the cheap wit and harmless malice by which poor Gershom suffered as long as he stayed at school. He was never offended, but was often sorely perplexed, at the apparent treachery of his unseen counselors. He was dismissed at last from the academy for utter and incorrigible ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold, First pledge of blithesome May Which children pluck, and full of pride uphold * * * * * ... thou art more dear to me Than all the ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... commencement of his studies, the attention of the student is directed to the various non-pathogenic moulds and yeasts, not only that he may gain the necessary technique whilst handling cultivations of harmless organisms, but also because these very species are amongst the commonest of those that may ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... points hers to her ear, even to the breaking of a word in two, as it were: and yet all my boys are as lively as so many birds: while my Pamela is cheerful, easy, soft, gentle, always smiling, but modest and harmless as ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... see the true light. Oh, glorious light of the morning! Christ and his church in all humility, gentleness, spotlessness and love. In their lowly, inoffensive walk with God, holy, harmless, undefiled, unblamable, separated from and unspotted by the world, persecuted, rejected, and despised by men. Enduring all without a murmur, contented in any and every circumstance of life; counting everything ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... physical, seemed to grow combustible, and as if at any moment a word or a thought might cause a leap into flame. A spirit of anarchy and revolution was caged in that little close room, bound to a shoemaker's bench by the chain of labor for bread. The spirit was harmless enough, for its cage and its chain were not to be escaped or forced, strengthened as they were by the usage of a whole life. Ozias Lamb would deliver himself of riotous sentiments, but on that bench he would sit and peg shoes till his dying day. He would have pegged there ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... that the Irishman had been frightened, I sought him, expressed to him my regrets, and said that, though big, the dogs were quite harmless. With ready wit he retorted: 'Begorra, it isn't dogs that I am afraid of, ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... surrendered up. The army must be thrown off its guard and a treacherous attack made on its return home. But the young men and warriors think otherwise. Has not the Prophet told them that the white man's bullets are harmless, and that his powder will turn to sand? Why hesitate? The army is now asleep and will never awake. Let the Magic Bowl be produced, the sacred torch and the "Medean fire." Let there ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... opening of the fifth week of our life upon the island that a new and more surprising turn was given to our adventure. It arose out of a certain curiosity, harmless enough, on Edith Croyden's part. "Mr. Borus," she said one morning, "I should like so much to see the rest of our island. ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... all nature spoke of love, more than ever did Nora Sullivan's thoughts turn toward the large grove of trees to the westward in the midst of which Wilhelm Klingenspiel had his home and carried on his pleasant and harmless vocation of raising African geese. The evening song of the geese, tempered and sweetened by distance, came to her, accompanied by the most extraordinary booming and racketing of frogs which is to be heard outside of the tropical zone; for not only did ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... is starved still And as devised by Will. That is to say, My second-best best bed, yea, and the gear withal Thou hast; but all that capital messuage Known as New Place goes to Susanna Hall. Haply the disproportion may engage The harmless ail-too-wise which otherwise Might knot themselves disknitting of a clue That Bacon wrote me. Lastly, I devise My wit, to whom? To wit, to-whit, to-whoo! And here revoke all previous testaments: Witness, J. ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... princes and their haughty peers, Clad all in steel, come striding on to crush A harmless shepherd race with mailed hand. Desperate the conflict: 'tis for life or death; And many a pass will tell to after years Of glorious victories sealed in foemen's blood. [25] The peasant throws himself ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... they are not a full justification, are, at least, a beautiful apology. It will not be improper to add what Johnson himself has said on the subject. Being asked by Mr. Boswell[p], what he thought of purgatory, as believed by the Roman catholicks? his answer was, "It is a very harmless doctrine. They are of opinion, that the generality of mankind are neither so obstinately wicked, as to deserve everlasting punishment; nor so good as to merit being admitted into the society of blessed spirits; and, therefore, ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... to the island, he found it inhabited by a happy, harmless people who received him with delight. They brought gifts to him, and showed him and his soldiers gold, which was found ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... was, therefore, in that state of affairs, afraid of being sold away from his or her relatives, although their mistress frequently threatened so to sell them. "I'll send you to Red River," was a common menace of hers, but perfectly harmless, for all knew, as well as she did, that it was impossible to carry it ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... at Berlin, of which the new King consented to be patron; but he never once entered the place; and only his Portrait (a welcomely good one, still to be found there) presided over the mysteries in that Establishment. Harmless "fire," but too "fatuous;" mere flame-circles cut in the air, for ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... as cravat. He had a slow, rather ponderous speech, with deep gurgling gutturals and a decrescendo laugh, slipping farther and farther down into his larynx. Once, when we got to know each other fairly well, I ventured some harmless jest about Barbarossa. He chuckled; then his face grew grave. "I wish Minna could have the beard," he said. "Her chest is not strong. It would be a fine breast-protector for her. But me, because I am strong like a horse, I have it all!" ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... And here is my position. Since all ways of life are tainted with fraud, since to live and speak the truth is beyond human strength and courage—as one finds it—is it not better for a man that he engage in some straightforward comparatively harmless cheating, than if he risk his mental integrity in some ambiguous position and fall at last into self-deception and self-righteousness? That is the essential danger. That is the thing I always guard against. Heed that! It is the ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... or was he forcing himself to go through with it? Wasn't he, moreover, incurring all the labours of parenthood without any of its proper dignity and social esteem? Mrs. Chow down the street, for instance, why did she look so sniffingly upon him when she heard the children, in the harmless uproar of their play, cry him aloud as Daddy? Uncle, he had intended they should call him; but that is, for beginning speech, a hard saying, embracing both a palatal and a liquid. Whereas Da-da—the syllables come almost unconsciously to the infant mouth. So he had encouraged it, and ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... hands, to pass the load of dirt to her hind legs, and then runs backward out of her hole to dump it down behind her. Mr. Emerton tells me that he never saw a bee in the act of digging but once, and then she left off after a few strokes. He also says, "they are harmless and inoffensive. On several occasions I have lain on the grass near their holes for hours, but not one attempted to sting me; and when taken between the fingers, they make but ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... he said. Aleck seemed so harmless to him now. And then he stood silent, motionless, looking straight toward the stars, but seeing them not. He was remembering Maimie's face when she said, "Yes, Ranald, I will always remember you and think of you"; and then the thought of what followed, ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... illustration, his musical rhythm, his gaiety and cheerfulness, his vivacity and joyousness, his pathos and tenderness, his keen sense of the ridiculous and power of satire, without being bitter, so that his wit and fun are harmless, and perpetually pleasing. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... name of obviously native origin from a place in France is a snobbish, if harmless, delusion. There are quite enough moor leys in England without explaining Morley by Morlaix. To connect the Mid. English nickname Longfellow with Longueville, or the patronymic Hansom (Chapter III) with Anceaumville, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... is worth noting; for if we follow the thread which we have trailed behind us in entering the labyrinth we shall be able at any moment to get out; especially as the omnivorous monster lurking in its depths is altogether harmless. A moral and truly transcendental critique of science, as of common sense, is never out of place, since all such a critique does is to assign to each conception or discovery its place and importance in the Life of Reason. So administered, the critical cathartic ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... waiting here?" cried the shipbuilder, angrily. "Jack, now that that torpedo is spent, and lying harmless on the water, start up speed and head over that way. Go carefully, for, remember, any sudden shock against the war-head of the torpedo would ...
— The Submarine Boys' Lightning Cruise - The Young Kings of the Deep • Victor G. Durham
... second year of infancy. Dangerous, highly so. Forms a membrane that occludes air passages. Often ends in convulsions, and child suffocates. Sad, very. Let him see again. How long since the attack began? Yesterday at four. Ah, far gone, far. The great man soon vanished, leaving behind him a harmless preparation of aconite ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... been the history of Mr. Hardy's progression. He began with quite harmless rustic realism, fanciful and quaint. Then came his masterpieces wherein the power and grandeur of a great artist's inspiration fused everything into harmony. At the last, in his third period, we have the exaggeration of all ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... received life, light, and happiness. She received the ambassadors of sovereigns with the dignity and affability of a princess; she conversed with the most distinguished ladies in cheerful simplicity, and with the unaffected joyousness and harmless innocency of a young maiden; she conversed with men of learning and artists in profound and serious tones, about their labors, their efforts, and success; she allowed the generals to relate the momentous events of the late great battles, and her eye shone with deeper pride ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... wherein he had let loose the vultures of hate, dropping death upon helpless women and harmless babes, found the burden and the stench of him intolerable, and ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... limited resources of the Hospital, they relieved the establishment by frequently discharging patients whose cure might be very equivocal. Harmless lunatics thrown thus into the world, often without a single friend, wandered about the country, chanting wild ditties, and wearing a fantastical dress to attract the notice of the charitable, on whose alms they lived. They had a kind of costume, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... can he doubt this girl's story? Twenty years ago, as it seems, George Desmond had done something too bad to be discussed. After all, how impossible it is to trust to appearances! As a rule, the most seemingly harmless people are those who are guilty of the vilest misdemeanors. And, yet, what on earth could George have done twenty years ago? Visions of forgery, murder, homicide, rise up before him, but, try as he will, he cannot connect Mr. Desmond's face ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... They have a harmless look on the Printed Page, but when pulled at the Psychological turn of the Road, they become the Funeral Knell of Bachelor Freedom and a Prelude to cutting the String on whatever ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... hail began. Colder and colder grew the air with a strange, unnatural feel in it as if in the proximity of icebergs, or of the hour closest on dawn, and the hail, at first small and round, pretty and harmless, came gently chattering about the horse's ears and back, came faster and larger, came at last too fast and too large, came as stones come that are flung by enemies and rioting mobs of people anxious for vengeance. The doctor was afraid for his horse; one ear was cut ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... with their outcry filled the hollows of the hills as they went, bemoaning the loss of their peats and their creels, and raging at the wrong they had received. One of them, a characterless creature in the eyes of her neighbours, harmless, and always in want, had faith in her chief, for she had done nothing to make her ashamed, and would go to him at once: he had always a word and a smile and a hand-shake for her, she said; the other, commonly called Craftie, was unwilling: her character did not stand high, and she feared ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... was to send a letter to my general at Lille, which if he was there would inform him of my vicinity, and if not, might perhaps find its way to his destination. At all events, I resolved only to write what would be harmless should it fall even into the hands of the enemy. I directed those few lines to M. le Chevalier d'Arblay, officier suprieur du garde du corps de sa majest Louis XVIII. But when I would have sent them to the post, I was informed there was ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... use your waiting," said Dravot, politely, "It's about four o'clock now. We'll go before six o'clock if you want to sleep, and we won't steal any of the papers. Don't you sit up. We're two harmless lunatics, and if you come, to-morrow evening, down to the Serai we'll say ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... divide them into three classes. There were some in which he had treated the piety of faith and morals so simply and evangelically that his very adversaries had been compelled to confess them useful, harmless, and worthy of Christian reading. How could he condemn these? There were others in which he attacked the Papacy and the doctrine of the Papists, who both by their teachings and their wretched examples have wasted Christendom with both spiritual and corporal evil. Nor could any one deny or ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... you will come down and look at us you will find us two perfectly harmless people, whose horse—curses on him—departed without leave last night and ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... adieus and passed on down the shaded avenue on foot. Mary Louise gave an odd little shiver as they walked out into the shadow, past the circle of the lamp on the railing. Uncle Buzz—Mr. Mosby—had seemed always just a piece of background, a harmless bit of scenery, a catalogue of amenities, a husk, a shell—she wondered how many other things. And now he was cropping out with a personality, had desires, problems, secret plottings, ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... Caesar alone were combined the intellect and the power necessary for such a work; and they had killed him, and in doing so had passed final sentence on themselves. Not as realities any more, but as harmless phantoms, the forms of the old Republic were henceforth to persist. In the army only remained the imperial consciousness of the honor and duty of Roman citizens, To the army, therefore, the rule was transferred. The Roman nation had grown as the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... royal little ones! Shall they be left a prey to savage power? Can they lift up their harmless hands in vain, Or cry to heaven for help, and not be heard? Impossible! O gallant, generous, Hastings, Go on; pursue, assert, the sacred cause: Stand forth, thou proxy of all-ruling Providence, And save the friendless ...
— Jane Shore - A Tragedy • Nicholas Rowe
... in no way remarkable, but harmless enough, even including an unfortunate mad woman, whose mania it was to recount unceasingly the ill-treatment to which she had been exposed. At times, her indignation against her imaginary tormentors knew no bounds; ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... For while Melanchthon still believed in and hoped for, an understanding with the Romanists, Flacius saw through their schemes and fully realized the impending danger. In the reintroduction of Catholic ceremonies which Melanchthon regarded as entirely harmless, Flacius beheld nothing but the entering wedge, which would gradually be followed by the entire mass of Romish errors and abuses and the absolute dominance of Pope and Emperor over the Lutheran Church. The obedience demanded by the Emperor, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... She, too, smiled and coloured; and the double change became her so prettily that Gideon forgot to turn away his eyes, and, swinging the hammer with a will, discharged a smashing blow on his own knuckles. With admirable presence of mind he crushed down an oath and substituted the harmless comment, "Butter fingers!" But the pain was sharp, his nerve was shaken, and after an abortive trial he found he must desist ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the Mozambique Channel was fairly good, although subject to electric storms of the most terrible aspect, but perfectly harmless. On the second evening after rounding Cape St. Mary, we were proceeding, as usual, under very scanty sail, rather enjoying the mild, balmy air, scent-laden, from Madagascar. The moon was shining in tropical splendour, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... such a change in any one. He no longer had the appearance of a mild and inoffensive man. The look of harmless indecision was gone, and all his pious sentiments were flung to the wind. He burst out with a string of oaths such as I had never heard before, and ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... I warrant, my dear Peggy. Like all you women, Barbara is enjoying some harmless intrigue. Do you mind that day at Aylingford when I horsewhipped your first admirer? How old ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... the eastern slope of Valhalla." He cut it off and returned to the place where the gods were amusing themselves by using Balder as a target, hurling stones and darts, and trying to strike him with their battle-axes. But all these weapons were harmless. Then Loki, giving the twig of mistletoe to the blind god, Hoeder, directed his hand and induced him to throw it. When the mistletoe struck Balder it pierced him through and through and ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... the animal had never violated the laws of his nature or the laws of God, as man often did; but strictly followed the simple, harmless instincts he had received from the hand of the Creator of all things. Created by God's hand, he had a right—a right from God—to life, to food, to liberty; and they had no right ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... islands we had not on this occasion an opportunity of seeing much, but the traders on the whole gave them a good character for honesty, and described them as a harmless race very much scattered. They used formerly to bring their articles of barter to Dobbo, but discontinued it within the last few years, in consequence of having been ill-used by the Bughis. Many of them profess Christianity, having been converted by ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... shout roared from Lower Town, to be taken up and echoed and reechoed from the Castle! For two more days bombs roared in midair, plunging through the roofs of houses in Lower Town or ricochetting back harmless from the rock wall below Castle St. Louis. At the St. Charles the land forces were fighting blindly to effect a crossing, but the Le Moyne bushrovers lying in ambush repelled every advance, though Ste. Helene had fallen mortally ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... the German railway officials have this same craving for tickets. If only they get somebody to show them a railway-ticket, they are happy. It seemed a harmless weakness of theirs, and B. and I decided that it would be only kind to humour them in it during ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... us or our ways, or I shouldn't bother to tell you this. But I can see that you are much annoyed at Harry, and I don't blame you. But you mustn't mind him. He is really harmless. He falls in love with every new face he sees, has a violent attack, then gets over it just as quickly. You are an entirely new type to him, so I suppose his attack this time will be a little more prolonged. He'll make violent love to you behind my back or before my ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... conjuror's bag of the Africans. It is called 'waiter,' or 'kunger,' by the Southern blacks, and is supposed to have the power to charm away evil spirits, and to do all manner of miraculously good things for its wearer. Those that I have seen are harmless little affairs, consisting only of small pieces of rags ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and faithfulness, and according to your honourable request and my honourable commandment will not leave it undone, and are furthermore willing that you send unto us your ships and vessels, when, and as often as they may have passage, with good assurance on our part to see them harmless. And if you send one of your Majesty's council to treat with us, whereby your country merchants may with all kinds of wares, and where they will, make their market in our dominions, they shall have their free mart with all free liberties through my whole dominions with all kinds of wares, ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... Swedenborgianism systematised and earned out into action, amongst nervous and impressionable races like the Anglo-American. In England it is the reverse; the obtuse sensitiveness of a people bred on beef and beer has made the "Religion of the Nineteenth Century" a manner of harmless magic, whose miracles are table-turning and ghost seeing whilst the prodigious rascality of its prophets (the so-called Mediums) has brought it into universal disrepute. It has been said that Catholicism must be true to co-exist with the priest and it is the same with Spiritualism proper, by ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... life. Aunt Faith understood her niece thoroughly, and she knew there would be no danger of a relapse into the mistakes of the past; other faults, other temptations would assail her, but these were harmless. Having once seen and realized the falsity of worldliness when compared with religion, the worthlessness of mere money, when compared with true affection, Sibyl could never forget the lesson, for firm reason and resolve ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... we shall never know; but it is as easy to think of Bianca as a harmless woman who both lost and gained through love as to picture her as sinister and scheming. At any rate we know that Francis was devoted to her with a fidelity and persistence for which Grand Dukes have not always ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... "Poor little harmless dudelet!" mused Winifred, with a smile; "his self-complacency will be short-lived whenever he meets Isabel. She will simply annihilate him with one of those ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... had gained her father's consent to spend her first week out of school in New York provided she could find a suitable chaperon. She had fallen upon the first and most harmless person in sight and besieged ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... solution. From that single one, if the solution were kept at a fair temperature in a warm summer's day, there would be generated, in the course of a week, enough torulae to form a scum at the top and to form lees at the bottom, and to change the perfectly tasteless and entirely harmless fluid, syrup, into a solution impregnated with the poisonous gas carbonic acid, impregnated with the poisonous substance alcohol; and that, in virtue of the changes worked upon the sugar by the vital activity of these infinitesimally small ...
— Yeast • Thomas H. Huxley
... ye judges, or at least be just: Let no renewed hostilities invade Th' oblivious grave's inviolable shade. Let one great payment every claim appease, And him who cannot hurt, allow to please; To please by scenes, unconscious of offence, By harmless merriment, or useful sense. Where aught of bright or fair the piece displays, Approve it only;—'tis too late to praise. If want of skill or want of care appear, Forbear to hiss;—the poet cannot hear. By all, like him, must praise and blame be found, At ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... approved cowboy manner. As each member of the party had had their "tea" (he was practising with the knife which was used for the carving of the cake—and anything else, when needed), no one objected to this harmless amusement on his part, provided he did not pitch the knife on to their toes; and, after long exercise, with the help of The Wild Man, who is an adept at these tricks, The Chaperon at last succeeded in "throwing the knife" to his satisfaction, and others' terror. ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... the philosopher; and the tenth muse of the poet. I will go neither into the the medical nor the moral questions about the dreamy calming cloud. I will content myself so far with saying what may be said for everything that can bless and curse mankind, that in moderation it is at least harmless; but what is moderate and what is not, must be determined in each individual case, according to the habits and constitution of the subjects. If it cures asthma, it may destroy digestion; if it soothes the nerves, it may, in ...
— Frost's Laws and By-Laws of American Society • Sarah Annie Frost
... harmless old thing, though," replied the lawyer sententiously, "and every squatter on Cayuga Lake loves her. Believe me, Eb, ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... deprived of the means of quitting the island, unless by swimming, and they appeared to be instantly aware of the very important fact. Rising in a body, they filled the air with yells, and poured in a harmless fire. While up in this unguarded manner, two rifles were discharged by their adversaries. One came from the summit of the block, and an Iroquois fell dead in his tracks, shot through the brain. The other came from the Scud. The last was the piece of the Delaware, but, less ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... London, not unkindly critical, but anxious to give information about his country—and uninvited. But whereas the Englishman is so accustomed to the abuse and criticism of other peoples that the harmless chatter of the American ripples more or less unheeded by him, the American, less case-hardened in his isolation, hears the Englishman's bluntly worded expression of contempt, and it hurts. It does not hurt nearly ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... infringing upon the conventions of society they had never given him so much as an unquiet thought. Certainly to dine at a restaurant or attend so public a function as grand opera with a person of the opposite sex, seemed to him a singularly harmless choice of indiscretions, and had she made a careless avowal of her intention the matter would probably have dropped at the moment from his thoughts. But the very secretiveness of her manner—the suggestion of a hidden motive which dwelt in her nervous movements ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... intercourse with the discontented emirs. He relied chiefly on Akush, who kept a strict watch over Nasir's movements. The spies of Akush, however, were open to corruption, and they failed later to take steps to render Nasir harmless at the right moment. Beybars believed Nasir to be still in Kerak, when he was well on the way to Damascus; and when he finally received news of this, the rebellion had already gone so far that some of the troops who had been sent out against the sultan had already deserted to his side. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the present day an entirely different deployment and organization of the attacking forces would be considered essential, and the preparation by concentrated artillery fire would be much more thorough than was practicable then. The dense forest made the cannonade almost harmless at the points chosen for assault, and the attack was one of infantry against unshaken earthworks. [Footnote: For description of the battle, see ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... speech of the Indians. "Yet, few though they became, there walked among them, at least, one of their race whose heart and mind was like the night when the moon shines not and clouds have hid the stars. One day this evil one rose up and slew a harmless white settler. The wise men of the tribe took counsel together, saying, 'times are changing, we will turn him over to the law of the white men.' The ears of the Little Tiger may have heard whispered the name of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... had never been able to make anything of them. In fact, from the way they dressed and all, she had come to the conclusion that Mr. Vaughan and the yogi were both a little crazy, but quite inoffensive and harmless. ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... were politicians and lawyers who could have given him effectual help. But they almost unanimously refused to take his plans seriously. The British barrister and member of Parliament looked upon codification as at best a harmless fancy. 'A jurist,' Fitzjames sometimes remarks in a joke, which was not all joking, is a 'fool who cannot get briefs.' That represents the view generally taken of his own energy. It was possibly admirable, certainly unobjectionable, but not to the purpose. The ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... govern who cannot afford to be unpopular, and no democratic official can afford to be unpopular. Sometimes he has to wink at flagrant injustice and oppression; at other times a fanatical agitation compels him to pass laws which forbid the citizen to indulge perfectly harmless tastes, or tax him to contribute to the pleasures of the majority. In many ways a Russian under the Tsars was far less interfered with than an Englishman ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... Unfortunately, however, the harmless foibles of Sir Lumley were combined with an unbounded extravagance which finally involved the luckless dandy in a ruin as complete as it was pathetic. He disappeared from fashionable life to undergo ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... commenced upon the Fort, but without much apparent effect. The shots were harmless; they penetrated the earth of which the walls were composed, and were there buried, without further injury. Some two hours were thus spent without injuring any person in the Fort. They then commenced throwing ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... an old-fashioned picture," said Bat, the quaint characteristics of the composition in the frame of the window appealing to him. "I wonder if I've not been a little hasty with these notions of mine about this place. That old lad looks as harmless as——" ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... sun god was upon his head. It marked him, Jerry knew, as the master of their world. True, they had bowed in submission to that other master, whose vile head lay horrible and harmless on the floor of the great hall—they had believed in the commands the priests had pretended to receive from him—but this emblem on the helmet marked the leader of the race, the master of this world, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... sweetly calm. She started from her dream, glanced up at him and, to his renewed discomfort, broke into a little laugh. It was sheer amusement, loving raillery too, of him who could give her the priceless gift of a God made man and then ask her to forsake the arena where the beasts were harmless now because ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... the same cause, struggling for what is most valuable to man, his right of self-government. Laboring always at the same oar, with some wave ever ahead threatening to overwhelm us, and yet passing harmless under our bark, we knew not how, we rode through the storm with heart and hand, and made a happy port. Still we did not expect to be without rubs and difficulties; and we have had them. First the detention of the western posts: then the coalition of Pilnitz, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... truth, I have not spilled the red puddle (which these villagios call the blood) of their most uncivil relation, so I am under no apprehension whatever for the issue of this restraint, seeing that it cannot but be harmless to me. Natheless, to thee, O most Molendinar beauty, I return the thanks which ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... immune from criticism. But L'Immortel, despite its author's cleverness, is once more an essentially vulgar book, and a vulturine or ghoulish one—fixing on the wounds and the bruises and the putrefying sores of its subject—dragging out of his grave, for posthumous crucifixion, a harmless enough pedant of not very old time; and throwing dirty missiles at living magnates. It is one of the books—unfortunately not its author's only contribution to the list—which leave a bad taste in the mouth, a "flavour of poisonous brass and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... gander eyed his approach with contemptuous indifference. He had come to regard the Boy as quite harmless. When, therefore, the encumbering folds of the blanket descended, it was too late to resist. In a moment he was rolled over in the dark, bundled securely, picked up, and ignominiously tucked under ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the soldiers worked. This at first they endured. The melted substances ran off from the polished surface of the shields, and the stones which were dashed upon them from engines, after rattling and bounding over their heads, rolled harmless to the ground. But there was in reserve a foe which they could not encounter. When it was found that the fiery streams flowed down the slanting sides of the shell, penetrating scarcely at all through the crevices of the well-joined shields, it was suggested by the ingenious Periander, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... Woodpeckers pecked the trees, and robins plucked the first ripe cherries. Hawks pounced upon the chickens, and crows and blackbirds pulled the corn. What were they all made for, and poised upon wings, with an omnipresence to annoy our race? Robins were good to eat, and they were more harmless, than others; but why were blackbirds let loose on earth? and for what did crows and hawks take flight in our air? Why were the brutal beasts and troublesome fowls, saved out of the things that were drowned ...
— Summerfield - or, Life on a Farm • Day Kellogg Lee
... excitement along the nerves of the young man. He gathered his books to move away; but on second thoughts, looking through the long, swaying tendrils of the broom under which he sat, he resolved to remain. After all, the girls might be as harmless ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... unknown in any previous epoch of history. An interesting essay might be written upon points upon which nations affect more vices than they possess; and it might deal more fully with the American pressman, who is a harmless clubman in private, and becomes a ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... this is quite enough; Madam does not care for great compliments, and she knows that you are a clever and witty man. (Aside to DORIMENE) He is a harmless citizen, ridiculous enough, as you ...
— The Shopkeeper Turned Gentleman - (Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme) • Moliere (Poquelin)
... serious, they did not hesitate a moment, but dashed forwards towards the foot of the sand hill and the wall of the old town, halted for a moment, poured in a volley, and then rushed into the breach and against the walls. The volley had been harmless, for Vere had ordered the men to lie flat until it was given. As the Spaniards climbed up barrels of ashes were emptied upon them, stones and heavy timbers hurled down, and flaming hoops cast over their necks. Three times they climbed to the crest of the sand hill, and as many times ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... I find him one evening, in Passion Week, accompanying some of the Italian singers, at a concert at Lady Carlisle's. A clergyman, no doubt, is not obliged to be on his knees the whole week before Easter, and music and a concert are harmless amusements; but when Cato or Calvin are out of character, reformation becomes ridiculous—but poor Dr. Brown was mad,(378) and therefore might be in earnest, whether he played the fool or ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... upon the screen of his imagination. This woman commanded his admiration and respect. Despite all dissemblings, all evasions, all actual and evident signs of the double-cross, he confided to his other self that he was glad he had kissed her. What can be so deliciously harmless as a kiss? ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... winter weather, driven by starvation to men's very doors. We also have the expression, "a wolf in sheep's clothing." By this we mean a person who is really dangerous and harmful, but who puts on a harmless and gentle manner ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... a good cigar. These harmless joys are excellent for man. They help his Christianity. They keep him from bitterness, harsh judgments. But harshness is for northern climes—rainy England, eh? Forgive me, Madame. I speak in joke. You come from England perhaps. It ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... education wise in its aims, how could I view without indignation those poor wretches subjected to an intolerable slavery and condemned like galley-slaves to endless toil, with no certainty that they will gain anything by it? The age of harmless mirth is spent in tears, punishments, threats, and slavery. You torment the poor thing for his good; you fail to see that you are calling Death to snatch him from these gloomy surroundings. Who can ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... from me to Carthoris, my son. You may read the note before you deliver it, that you may know that it contains nothing harmful to Zat Arrras. My son will be discreet, and so none but us three need know. It is very simple, and such a harmless act that it could be condemned by ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Mr. Jaffrey again until the following morning at breakfast. He had recovered his bird-like manner, and was full of a mysterious assassination that had just taken place in New York, all the thrilling details of which were at his fingers' ends. It was at once comical and sad to see this harmless old gentleman with his naive, benevolent countenance, and his thin hair flaming up in a semicircle, like the footlights at a theatre, revelling in the ...
— Miss Mehetabel's Son • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... as well as from the Father. Such articles of faith are not susceptible of treaty; but the rules of discipline will vary in remote and independent churches; and the reason, even of divines, might allow, that the difference is inevitable and harmless. The craft or superstition of Rome has imposed on her priests and deacons the rigid obligation of celibacy; among the Greeks it is confined to the bishops; the loss is compensated by dignity or annihilated by age; and the parochial clergy, the papas, enjoy the conjugal society of the wives whom ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... it he?" quoth one, "Is this the man? "By him who died on cross, "With his cruel bow he lay'd full low 405 "The harmless Albatross. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... eddied. A chill was in the air. Barbara's eyes grew heavier and heavier. She tucked her feet under her and expanded in the warmth like a fireside kitten. Then, had she known it, the man was looking at her, looking at her with a strange, wistful tenderness in his gray eyes. Dear, harmless, innocent little Barbara, who had so ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... warn't theirn, wut we give come ez cheap; The elect gut the offices down to tidewaiter, The people took skinnin' ez mild ez a tater, Seemed to choose who they wanted tu, footed the bills, An' felt kind o' 'z though they wuz havin' their wills, Which kep' 'em ez harmless an' clerfle ez crickets, While all we invested wuz names on the tickets: Wal, ther' 's nothin' for folks fond o' lib'ral consumption, Free o' charge, like democ'acy tempered ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... sermon, and in the speeches which followed in the festivities of the afternoon, the French were held up to the loudest admiration, as having carried the principles of our own Revolution to a loftier height, and having opened boundless hopes to mankind. By these harmless proceedings Burke's anger and scorn were aroused to a pitch which must seem to us, as it seemed to not a few of his contemporaries, singularly out of all proportion to its cause. Deeper things were doubtless in silent motion within him. He set to work ...
— Burke • John Morley
... their journey in a friendly group, for Polychrome had discovered that the copper man was harmless and was no longer afraid of him. Button-Bright was also reassured, and took quite a fancy to Tik-tok. He wanted the clockwork man to open himself, so that he might see the wheels go round; but that was a thing Tik-tok could not do. ...
— The Road to Oz • L. Frank Baum
... king-craft that ever lived, but who was, in truth, one of those kings whom God seems to send for the express purpose of hastening revolutions. Of all the enemies of liberty whom Britain has produced, he was at once the most harmless and the most provoking. His office resembled that of the man who, in a Spanish bull-fight, goads the torpid savage to fury, by shaking a red rag in the air, and by now and then throwing a dart, sharp enough to sting, but too small to injure. The policy of wise tyrants has always ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... she said; 'the priests are harmless for you. You have escaped them and there's an end. Few have ever come alive from their clutches before, and he who does so is a wizard indeed. For the rest I think that your God is stronger than our gods, for surely He ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... new kingdom and write eloquent articles in the same strain will be utterly horrified at this statement, and will, moreover, laugh to scorn the idea that the modern civilized Italian could conspire to take the life of a harmless and unoffending old man. They will be quite right. The modern civilized Italians would treat the Pope with the greatest respect and consideration if he appeared amongst them. Most of them would take off their hats and stand aside while ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... smiled, and with harmless unconstraint chatted yet a long time with the shrewd and versatile ambassador ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... of a nettle than the dagger which is fatal to Dragon-flies. The same virus acts differently upon this organism and that, is formidable here and quite mild there. What kills the insect may easily be harmless to us. Let us not, however, generalize too far. The Narbonne Lycosa, that other enthusiastic insect-huntress, would make us pay clearly if we attempted ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... subject, waged fast and furious. The picture papers inserted cleverly-illustrated articles pro. and con.; the peace of families was temporarily wrecked, for people were of course divided in their opinions, and bitter things were said by both sides concerning a very simple and harmless matter. For a time it seemed as though the "Ayes" would win; but eventually appearances carried the day, and women still use side saddles when on horseback, though the knickerbockers and short skirts (only far shorter) I advocated for rough country riding are now constantly ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... of these impressions, the verdict of the fresh mind uninfluenced by the old conception, was the more correct one. The speech was decidedly out of place in that company. The skit was harmless enough, but it was of the Comstock grain. It lacked refinement, and, what was still worse, it lacked humor, at least the humor of a kind suited to that long-ago company of listeners. It was another ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... classes in the world," said he, "is the drifting and friendless woman. She is the most harmless and often the most useful of mortals, but she is the inevitable inciter of crime in others. She is helpless. She is migratory. She has sufficient means to take her from country to country and from hotel to hotel. She is lost, as often as not, in a maze of obscure pensions ...
— The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax • Arthur Conan Doyle
... against his will into this servitude nor any foreign seaman on domestic voyages. Another evil tending to degrade and enslave the sailor was the allowance made by law of three months' advance wages on beginning a voyage. This apparently harmless and, to the credulous and inexperienced legislator, beneficial provision gave a chance to the sailors' boarding-house keeper and runner, or "crimp,'' as he or she is called, to "shanghai'' seamen and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the church, these simple, interesting, and harmless (if not laudable) practices still remain. The early customs and features of all nations approximate; and whether the following traits, which a friend has kindly obliged me with, are relics of Roman introduction, or national, I leave the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... was in itself very attractive. In spite of Webber's advice, he and Alves found it hard to mix with the other "guests." After they had been in the house several months, he fancied that the people avoided them. The harmless trio left their table, and in place of them came a succession of transient boarders. For a time he thought he was oversensitive, inclined to suspect his neighbors of avoiding him. But one evening Alves came into their room, where he was working at ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... fools. It is not so much that they rush in where angels fear to tread, but rather that they let out what devils intend to do. Some perversion of folly will float about nameless and pervade a whole society; then some lunatic gives it a name, and henceforth it is harmless. With all really evil things, when the danger has appeared the danger is over. Now it may be hoped that the self-indulgent sprawlers of Poesia have put a name once and for all to their philosophy. In the case ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... its object. Instead of a gathering of "Fifth Monarchy men," or other turbulent fanatics as he had supposed, for the disturbance of the public peace, he learnt from the constable that they were only a few peaceable, harmless people, met together "to preach and hear the word," without any political meaning. Wingate was now at a nonplus, and "could not well tell what to say." For the credit of his magisterial character, however, he must do something to show that he had not made ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... a trap, I hesitated, but the question seemed harmless, so I only countered, "Have you been ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... courage was equalled by his piety to the gods, and care for public morals. Turnus represents Antony, whose turbulent vehemence (violentia) [55] mixed with generosity and real valour, makes us lament, while we accept his fate. Dido is the Egyptian queen whose arts fell harmless on Augustus's cold reserve, and whose resolve to die eluded his vigilance. Drances, [56] the brilliant orator whose hand was slow to wield the sword, is a study from Cicero; and so the other less important characters have historical prototypes. But there is even less to be said for this view ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... into the lodge in which I lay last night. Great numbers of those people geathered around me to Smoke. I gave them 2 pipes and lay down in the back part of the house with Sgt. P. & the men with our arms in a Situation as to be ready in case of any alarm. those pore people appear entirely harmless- I purchased a dog and Some wood with a little pounded fish and Chappaless. made a fire on the rocks and Cooked the dogs on which the men breckfast & Dined. wind hard all ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... to Farnham Holt, and that he need not fear disobliging any gentlemen in the country, some of whom were very kind to this Elliot. They persuaded him that certain persons of fortune were concerned with them and would bear him harmless if he would go. He owned that at last he consented to go with them, but trembled all the way, insomuch that he could hardly reach the Holt. While they were engaged in the business for which they came, viz., killing the ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... is your man. Reddish hair and long side whiskers, gray clothes. Pretends to represent summer hotel syndicate. Allen at Asquith unknown and harmless. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... de Choiseul did not like the fashionable Saint-Germain. He thought him a humbug, even when the doings of the deathless one were perfectly harmless. As far as is known, his recipe for health consisted in drinking a horrible mixture called "senna tea"—which was administered to small boys when I was a small boy—and in not drinking anything at his meals. Many people still observe ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... Once or twice when an officer spoke to him sternly he gave a little cry, ran to the side, and crouched down as if in abject fear. In a very short time no attention was paid to him, and he was suffered to go about as he chose, being regarded as a harmless imbecile. He was in hopes that the next day the Spaniards would change their course and endeavour to beat back to the Channel, and was at once disappointed and surprised as they sped on before the southwesterly wind, ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old lady, almost past every thing but tea and quadrille. She lived with her single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married. Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having much ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... view it. He warned us that we might see a man belonging to the neighbourhood who was partly insane, and who, roaming amongst the castle ruins, usually ran straight towards any strangers as if to do them injury; but if we met him we must not be afraid, as he was perfectly harmless. We had no desire to meet a madman, and luckily, although we kept a sharp look-out, we did not see him. We found the ruined castle resting on a rock overlooking the sea with the rolling waves dashing on its base below; it was connected with ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... three persons connected with this narrative within a few feet of each other, distinguished from the multitude by the feelings with which each regarded the scene, and felt the jostle of the crowd. Percival St. John, in whom the harmless sense of pleasure was yet vivid and unsatiated, caught from the assemblage only that physical hilarity which heightened his own spirits. If in a character as yet so undeveloped, to which the large passions and stern ends of life were as yet unknown, stirred some deeper and more musing thoughts ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... now resolved the last doubts that could have been felt about the fate of the Franklin expedition. He has traced the one untraced ship to its grave beyond the ocean, and cleared the reputation of a harmless people from an undeserved reproach. He has given to the unburied bones of the crews probably the only safeguard against desecration by wandering wild beasts and heedless Esquimaux Which that frozen land allowed. He has brought home for reverent sepulture, in a kindlier soil, the one body which ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... from the emptying town A crowd of five thousand all rushing down; They hurry, they scurry, they buzz, they brize, And all to see this witch in a blaze. Deep in the midst of the jubilant throng A harmless woman is hurried along,— She is weary, and wheezing for lack of breath, And o'er all her face is the pallor of death; And she says, as they push her, in grim despair, "Ye needna hurry yoursel's sae sair— Nae sport there will be till I ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... be disturbed, gentlemen; he's quite harmless. You heard him talking about the King—he suffers from Regalmania. He ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Melodramatic Farce in Four Acts • Paul Dickey
... comment and suggestion from a woman whom as a girl she had never admitted to familiarity with her, but had tolerated her because she was such a harmless simpleton, and hung upon other girls whom she liked better. The word monument cowed her, however. She was afraid they might begin to talk about the soldiers' monument. She answered hastily, and began to ask them about ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... "What can harmless creatures do but run," resumed the major, filling his glass with old port. "But when the wretch that has done all the hurt he could will not show fight for it, but turns tail the moment danger appears, I call him a contemptible coward. ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... And that seemingly harmless remark lodged in Roger's mind and rankled there throughout the whole of the following day when the Peabody lunch took place as arranged—but lacking the presence of Maryon ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... himself to resist his impulses for very long. There was very little of logical balancing going on in his brain; it began to seem terribly, fatally easy to carry out this imposition. The fraud itself grew less ugly and more harmless ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... whom I would fain, if possible, have avoided mention, who are strangers to any such scruples. These be Executors — a word to be strongly accented on the penultimate; for, indeed, they are the common headsmen of collections, and most of all do whet their bloody edge for harmless books. Hoary, famous old collections, budding young collections, fair virgin collections of a single author — all go down before the executor's remorseless axe. He careth not and he spareth not. "The iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy,'' ...
— Pagan Papers • Kenneth Grahame
... of time, I can understand my mother's character, and recognize that there was something about her, which, although it was very harmless, led her to exaggerate the outward expression of all her feelings. While she occupied herself in studying the attitudes by which her emotions were to be fittingly expressed, the sentiments themselves were fading away. For instance, she chose ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... "If there be a God, He must be just!" That divine justice, after centuries, has been fully established on the descendants of the cruel, sanguinary conquerers of South America and its butchered harmless Emperor Montezuma and his innocent offspring, who are now teaching Spain a moral lesson in freeing themselves from its insatiable thirst for blood and wealth, while God Himself has refused that blessing to the Spaniards ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... box adorn: To leafless shrubs the flowery palms succeed, And odorous myrtle to the noisome weed. The lambs with wolves shall graze the verdant mead And boys in flowery bands the tiger lead: The steer and lion at one crib shall meet, And harmless serpents lick the pilgrim's feet. The smiling infant in his hand shall take The crested basilisk and speckled snake, Pleased, the green lustre of the scales survey, And with their forky tongue shall innocently play. Rise, ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... as of old, took his stand in the midst, and all the others hurled at him weapons, stones and sticks, and even hit at him with their battle-axes. They grew very merry over this pastime, for do what they would, none of them could harm Balder; the missiles either fell short, or dropped to his feet harmless. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester
... sensibility who knows and cares nothing about Romans and Byzantines, so long as I recognise that art criticism and archaeology are two different things, I hope I may be allowed to dabble unrebuked in my favourite hobby: I hope I am harmless. ...
— Art • Clive Bell
... beg of you!" pleaded the little man in a mild voice that, somehow, carried to the far end of the room. "Please don't shoot the most valuable snake I ever owned. Really she is quite harmless; aren't you, Ticula?" and he looked up at the swaying head of the snake that was weaving above him, as though to ask ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... supper upon fowl and tortillas. We were interested by the melancholy air of a poor woman, who sat aloof on the piazza, uncared for, and noticing no one. We spoke to her, and found that she was insane, wandering from village to village, and subsisting on charity. She seemed gentle and harmless, but the very picture of misery, and quite alone in the world, having lost all her family. But "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb." We saw her again in the morning before we set off, and saw her get some breakfast in the kitchen. The poor people ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... doing nothing to avoid it. An Athenian citizen does not neglect the State because he takes care of his own household; and even those of us who are engaged in business have a very fair idea of politics. We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs not as a harmless, but as a useless character; and if few of us are originators, we are all sound judges, of a policy. The great impediment to action is, in our opinion, not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... before his children such sober ways of living that Washington at least came to think that everything pleasant was wicked. No amount of sternness, however, could keep the five boys of the family and their three sisters wholly out of mischief, nor hinder them from having many a harmless good time. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... know what you call yourself, policeman or no policeman, to be chasing a poor harmless critter across 'em blazing commons on a day like this! You want to go and poke him down from my tester-bed, do you? Well, you can just go back and tell the magistrates as Mrs. Gammer's got him, and if they want him they must come for ...
— Golden Stories - A Selection of the Best Fiction by the Foremost Writers • Various
... terrible second I met her unflinching gaze, a glance which will abide with me until my dying day—then the keen steel fell, barely deflected from the heart, slashing open the bosom of her dress, yet—thanks be to a kind God!—finding harmless sheath, not within her quivering flesh but in the hard-packed earth. It was scarcely less than a miracle that I was thus able to turn the blow, but, even as I aimed it, putting to the hilt my full strength that I might send it surely ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... us finish our prayer,—the worst of men after condemnation are suffered to pray,—ye will, therefore, not surely refuse harmless Christians the boon that is aloo't to malefactors? At the conclusion I will go peaceably with you, for we are not rebels; we yield all bodily obedience to the powers that be, but the upright mind will not bend to any earthly ordinance. Our bodies are subject to the King's authority, and to you as ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... a very kind and feeling letter to Lady Agnes on the subject, stating that everybody was fond of the youth; that he never meant harm to any mortal creature; that he for his own part would have been delighted to pardon the harmless little boyish frolic, had not its unhappy publicity rendered it impossible to look the freak over, and breathing the most fervent wishes for the young fellow's welfare—wishes no doubt sincere, for Foker, as we know, came of a noble family on his ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... frequently heard them gliding between the bamboos and grass, chasing mice, beetles, or perhaps lizards, and sometimes falling on the top of the mosquito bar, or even on the dinner-table; but these were probably harmless creatures, as most snakes are. The cobra was not common in Cachar. It may be said here that a snake's mouth opens crossways as well as vertically, and each side has the power of working independently, the teeth ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... system, my friend, it braces you up. It should be introduced in your regiment," he shouted convincingly and kindly, so as not to frighten the soldier, not suspecting that the guard considered him a harmless lunatic. ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev |
